Back-to-Back Champions: What Our Haringey Football Win Says About Youth Work
RISE has won the Haringey Community Football Tournament for the second year running. Two tournaments, two titles. For us, the trophies matter, but what sits behind them matters even more.
There is something special about winning once. Winning again tells a different story.
When our young people were crowned Haringey Community Football Champions in 2026, they were not lifting the trophy for the first time. RISE had also won the tournament when it launched in 2025. The competition has now taken place twice, and RISE has won it twice.
That is something our young people should be incredibly proud of. But from our perspective as a youth organisation, the result is only the most visible part of the story. The bigger story is what happens in the weeks and months before anyone lifts a trophy.
What happens between the trophies
Youth work is built through consistency. It is young people turning up week after week, relationships forming, confidence growing and people gradually learning how to communicate, trust one another and take responsibility within a group.
Football creates a natural environment for that development. You can talk about resilience, but conceding a goal when there is still time left on the clock teaches it differently. You can explain teamwork, but eventually somebody has to make the extra pass, track the runner or support a teammate after a mistake.
These are football lessons, but they also reach far beyond football. Confidence, discipline, communication and resilience become easier to understand when young people have opportunities to experience them for themselves.
That is one of the reasons sport has become such an important part of our youth work at RISE.
A reason to come through the door
Not every young person is looking for a “youth service”. They may simply want somewhere to play football, see their friends, exercise, play pool or try something new.
At RISE, we take those starting points seriously. Football sits alongside RISE Youth Club, calisthenics, padel, workshops and wider youth activities. On a timetable these can look like separate programmes, but in practice they are connected by the relationships young people build through them.
A young person might first know us through football. Over time, they get to know the youth workers, become familiar with the RISE Hub and start to see the space as somewhere they belong. From there, other conversations can happen naturally.
A conversation that starts with football might later become a conversation about college, employment, confidence, wellbeing or what somebody wants to do next.
Sometimes trust is the pathway.
A tournament built around community
This is also why the Haringey Community Football Tournament matters to us beyond our own result.
The tournament, organised by Haringey Council and led by organiser Shawn Semper, was designed as more than a day of competition. This year’s event at Harris Academy Tottenham brought together football, physical health, mental wellbeing and wider community opportunity.
Despite the rain, families arrived early and activity continued throughout the day. The programme included young players, women and girls, walking football and competitive adult teams, with people from different generations taking part.
Young people were also involved beyond playing. Youth participants supported areas such as refereeing and media, creating opportunities for aspiring coaches, officials and content creators to gain real experience.
That matters. Too often we talk about creating opportunities for young people as though they must wait for adults to build something for them. Events like this show what can happen when they are trusted to help make the activity happen too.
“Grassroots activity doesn’t need much - just opportunity. The community does the rest.”
Shawn Semper, Community Football Tournament organiser
A wider community effort
Alongside Haringey Council and Harris Academy Tottenham, the tournament was supported by partners and sponsors including The Hill Group, Peabody and Carey London, with organisations including Mind in Haringey, Father2Father, Thru Life CIC and Anytime Fitness Tottenham Hale contributing to the wider wellbeing, activity and community offer.
Two tournaments. Two RISE victories.
RISE won the inaugural Haringey Community Football Tournament in 2025 and returned in 2026 to retain the title.
What winning twice means to us
Winning the tournament in its first year was a major achievement. Returning the following year and winning again gives us something else to celebrate: consistency.
The players have developed, the youth programme has continued and young people have kept engaging. Staff and volunteers have kept creating opportunities throughout the year. When tournament day arrived again, the team was ready to represent RISE.
That does not mean every week has been easy. Youth work includes the quieter moments that rarely make it into photographs: encouraging someone to return after a difficult week, managing disagreements, helping young people regain confidence and making sure activities continue consistently.
The trophy is the visible result. The work underneath it is what makes that result possible.
The people behind the shirt
Our biggest congratulations go to every young person who represented RISE. They competed with pride, worked for one another and have now achieved something distinctive: winning the Haringey Community Football Tournament in every year it has been held so far.
We also want to recognise the staff, volunteers and colleagues who create these opportunities throughout the year, including Yousri Belabbes, Mohamed Abdulkadir and Awale Elmi, alongside the wider RISE youth team and volunteers.
Their contribution does not begin on tournament day. It is built through regular sessions, relationships and the consistent presence that good youth work requires.
More than a trophy
Of course, we want our young people to enjoy winning. Competition matters and trophies create memories.
But eventually, the trophy will sit somewhere inside the RISE Hub. What matters more is what young people carry with them afterwards: the confidence of competing, the discipline of turning up, the friendships built along the way, the experience of having teammates rely on them and the resilience to keep going when something does not go to plan.
Those are the outcomes that matter most to us.
Young people do not only need support when something has gone wrong. They need places to belong, positive expectations, trusted relationships, fun, competition, responsibility and opportunities before things go wrong.
For two years running, our young people have brought the Haringey Community Football trophy back to RISE. We are immensely proud of them.
The trophy is not the end of the story. It is evidence of what can begin to happen when young people are given somewhere positive to grow.
The journey continues beyond the final whistle.
Explore RISE Youth Club, football, calisthenics, padel, workshops and other opportunities helping young people connect, stay active and move forward.